The Great Debate

Late one night aboard a magnificent ocean liner several days into a transatlantic voyage, two celebrated casuists indulged themselves in a great debate.

In the first class lounge, with cognacs at their elbows, and a sizeable crowd to urge them on, they elected to discuss the human condition.

"People are such bastards . . . " ventured the first casuist – who was a misanthrope – "ignorant, selfish, violent . . . nothing but trouble. I tell you, they are the most loathsome creatures ever to have crawled upon this planet, and we would be better off without them."

"Come now," replied the second casuist – who was a philanthropist – "they may be weak and they may be flawed, they may be capable of terrible errors of judgement and nauseating acts of aggression. But, apart from that, people can be quite nice, sometimes."

"Bollocks!" said the misanthrope. "People are fundamentally bad."

"Tosh!" said the philanthropist. "People are fundamentally good."

At that very moment the ship struck an iceberg, and the lounge was thrown into disarray – and the casuists abandoned their discussion.

The philanthropist panicked and ran for his life, pushing past every thing and every one in his way. On reaching the deck, he commandeered a lifeboat for himself, and took to the waves before anybody else was ready.

"Sorry, no room!" he cried to the astonished onlookers. "Thin end of the wedge and all that!" And he rowed himself away from the noise and the disarray, and watched the ship sink – over the remainder of the cognac.

The misanthrope, however, unthinkingly made for the lower decks, where he alerted the sleeping passengers and helped them escape. He then volunteered to call on all emergency stations and ensure that the crew received the order to abandon ship.

In an heroic last ditch visit to the radio room he managed to contact several vessels, and once he'd given them full details he struggled gasping through the sinking ship.

By the time he reached the upper decks the lifeboats had all gone, so he jumped into the icy water and called out for assistance.

But alas, assistance was not forthcoming, instead the survivors threw shoes at at him, and taunted him until he had drowned.

Moral: People are fundamentally paradoxical.